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Florida tale reminder of local sea stories
Mary Meaux
The Port Arthur News
As authorities search for the missing four-person crew of a hired vessel off
the coast of Florida, local memories turn to two odd sea related incidents
tied to Port Arthur.
On July 28, 1995, 53-year-old Wes Plummer, then the publisher of The Port
Arthur News, refinery worker Michael Rhodriguez, 50, and Beaumont lawyer
Robert Meroney, 41, disappeared on a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico.
The three men are presumed dead.
On that day, Rhodriguez and Plummer went out on Meroney's 31-foot boat, the
Hook 'Em II, to participate in an offshore fishing tournament.
A tropical storm blew in that weekend and the boat and its occupants were
reported missing. An intensive search was conducted, but was unsuccessful and
finally called off. No bodies were ever found.
Then, in 2003, a Michigan man was pulled from the Gulf of Mexico after
allegedly falling off a Carnival Cruise Lines ship less than eight hours
after it left Galveston. He spent 60 hours in the water before he was picked
up by the cargo ship Eny about 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, arriving
at the Port of Port Arthur.
“I really don't know what happened,” Sears, 31, said in an interview with The
News after he was rescued. “The boat left Galveston about 4:30 Saturday
afternoon and the last thing I remember was me and my buddy talking to some
girls in the casino around midnight. The next thing I knew I woke up in the
water.”
The Eny crew lowered a lifeboat to Sears and brought him on board, severely
sunburned, dehydrated, and a little scraped up, but otherwise in good
condition.
The Florida incident that is currently making news began as a routine charter
boat trip to the Bahamas. The trip turned horribly wrong somewhere on the
high seas when four crew members vanished and the two men who hired the
vessel were plucked out of a life raft.
Kirby Logan Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo are in custody on federal charges
while rescuers conduct a massive search in heavy rain for the crew of the
47-foot fishing charter Joe Cool. Neither Archer, who was a fugitive, nor
Zarabozo is charged in the disappearances.
“All I can say at this point is that the investigation is continuing,” FBI
spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.
The pair were found in a life raft Monday about 12 miles from where the
fishing boat was drifting. Authorities found no one on board and no
mechanical problems with the vessel. A key to some handcuffs was found on the
boat, and a substance appearing to be blood was found on the vessel's stern,
according to an FBI affidavit.
Archer and Zarabozo paid $4,000 cash to charter the Joe Cool on Sunday to
Bimini, Bahamas, where they told the boat's operators they had female
companions waiting for them.
The Coast Guard says that GPS navigation devices on the boat show that it
veered sharply south toward Cuba about halfway into the 50-mile trip.
Zarabozo, 19, of Hialeah, is a Cuban immigrant. Archer is a former soldier
once stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Archer, 35, of Strawberry, Ark., is
wanted in his home state on suspicion of stealing more than $92,000 in
January from a Wal-Mart where he was an assistant manager. He also went AWOL
from the Army four years ago.
Both men made initial court appearances Wednesday. Archer is charged with
fleeing prosecution in Arkansas. Zarabozo is charged with lying to federal
agents.
According to the FBI affidavit, Zarabozo initially told his Coast Guard
rescuers that “unknown subjects” had hijacked the boat, shot and killed the
four crew members and then ordered Zarabozo to throw the bodies into the sea.
Zarabozo later told the FBI he had never been on the Joe Cool, even though
his state identification card was found on the boat.
The Associated Press contributed to this article. |
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